


Can you tell me who you are? Can you tell me where I am? I've forgotten how to see; I've forgotten if I can

by JeniferSaturn (tokutske)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Redemption, The Second Titan War (Percy Jackson), i guess, i wrote this after i woke up lolz, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29186634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokutske/pseuds/JeniferSaturn
Summary: As he falls, he regrets a lot of things, but those last words? That last action? He would do it again in a heartbeat, freedom be damned.(or Ethan Nakamura and what he thought after betraying everyone and everything he ever knew.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Can you tell me who you are? Can you tell me where I am? I've forgotten how to see; I've forgotten if I can

**Author's Note:**

> “Can you tell me who you are?  
> Can you tell me where I am?  
> I've forgotten how to see;  
> I've forgotten if I can.”  
> Bad Apple - Touhou Project.
> 
> I wrote the first lines not knowing which way this was going and boom. I haven't read PJO in two years, so I can't say I remember Ethan (or the timeline tbh) very well, but eh. I just wanted to write. Enjoy lol.

Ethan doesn’t remember a day he rested easily, and as such he doesn’t miss being well-rested. Hard to miss something you never had. Comfort, a place to call home, all things he is surprised he gets to get a bite of. Yet it is only a taste, delicious yet short, and suddenly the place he called home is but a prison. Bitterly, he remembers his brothers and sisters, all those who bled for the gods above, who died for them and sacrificed themselves for a supposed noble cause. Nothing makes him madder than knowing all his purpose in life is to be a pawn for beings he will never get to meet— none of them will ever get to meet. Anger courses through his veins, righteous in nature, yet he doubts his steps. Joining them, the monsters they are tasked to kill, is hard and weird. It feels wrong after so many siblings and friends died in their hands, but staying with the ones that are using them feels worse. So he takes up Kronos's offer, to join his army and slay the gods above and be finally  _ free _ . Freedom, such a foreign concept when faced with the dwarfing problems of their secret world, with their world in general. He wants it, desperately, and he commits the error of getting blinded by promise and hope instead of looking and seeing how utterly stupid of an idea it is.

He is a son of Nemesis, however, and vengeance burns bright in his eyes, enough hate to form a grudge— it’s entirely unsurprising, that holding grudges is his fatal flaw, that it is what gets him killed. 

The thing he regrets most is dragging so many demigods down with him, people, children like himself, who were bitter and tired,  _ exhausted _ . Because of course they weren’t being claimed, they weren’t important for their parents after all. They were bred to die for them, however they weren’t important enough to ensure their survival. Holding his own anger down, weaving his words and planting seeds of doubt in their minds, he convinced them to join and leave with him. 

He thinks he heard, after the draft, that most campers were blaming the Hermes Cabin. That most people were distrustful, and he doesn’t know if the demigods noticed it, but that attitude sent more recruits their way from that very cabin. Ethan wonders how Connor and Travis dealt with that, with their siblings leaving, betraying them; with the campers' mistrust, blaming them despite having done nothing.

Luke Castellan is an addition he doesn’t expect, because Luke is supposed to be good. Luke is nice, and he helped Ethan through nightmares and held him through breakdowns, and this cold monster that doesn’t care for anyone isn’t Luke. Kronos hasn’t taken him over yet, but still, Ethan knows this isn’t the Luke he met, he learned, he  _ laughed _ , alongside with.

Seeing Luke, watching him make so many terrible decisions, is what convinces him that the choices he has made have been the wrong ones, even if he still believes the gods are  _ wrong _ . Hearing the tale of how he tricked Annabeth to hold the sky is nauseating, because Luke  _ cared _ , he cared loads about Annabeth, and they were close— and then they weren’t. Used to care, he corrects, no person that cares about another would trick them into something so horrible.

Ethan doesn’t do anything. He fights, he speaks, he walks. He keeps on living, but he doesn’t do anything more than that. One day he realizes how deep in he is, that he can’t back down now, not while the people he dragged with him are there, wrong and probably going to die sooner or later. Swallowing his own poison, he lies in the grave he dug for himself.

Percy Jackson, the absolute madman, the person that showed him mercy plenty of times when he really  _ didn’t  _ deserve it, is the reason Ethan finally decides to fight back. The reason he holds that knife and stabs Not Luke Actually Kronos in the neck and doesn’t regret it, and for the first time in ages he feels freedom, even as he bleeds out because he has finally done something good, he saved the person that can help them in the long run.

And his last words, as he lies there, dying, are said with the other demigods in mind, with his future siblings in mind, with the unclaimed demigods in mind. He tells Percy that the minor gods need recognition, that they’ve been treated lowly by the Olympians, and he hopes, strongly hopes, Jackson realizes that he is asking this not out of some loyalty for his mother but love for his extended family, for all the demigods at Camp Half-Blood.

As he falls, he regrets a lot of things, but those last words? That last action? He would do it again in a heartbeat, freedom be damned.


End file.
